Judge Koh rejects Apple and Samsung's request for a directed verdict on first patent trial, and more

0.phoneArenaposted on08 Feb 2014, 02:52

Believe it or not, both Apple and Samsung are still in court, dealing with post-trial proceedings from the first patent trial between the two rivals. That trial ended in August 2012 with Apple winning a $1.05 billion jury award. Judge Koh later tossed some of that award, saying that the jury was inconsistent in its award calculation. A second damages trial awarded Apple $290 million...

Apple's assertion in its lawsuits is that Samsung has copied elements of the iPhone and iPad for which Apple holds several patents. These particular patents are known as design patents. It seems a lot of folks don't take these patents seriously and go as far as to suggest that they should not exist. There is a good reason why they do exist. To protect the company's design, the product has to be on the market for a long time before its design acquires secondary meaning (i.e. before the design becomes iconic). When competitors come in immediately after a new product design is introduced and copy it, as is the assertion in the Apple vs Samsung case, the originator of the design doesn't have the luxury of time needed for its product design to acquire secondary meaning in the eyes of consumers. One of Samsung's patents was invalidated a while ago for a reason, Samsung has also been making phones years before Apple so it has a ton of patents, fyi they do admit they've copied apple but they just want to pay less for the damages

It seems that people take patents too seriously. The way the system works nowadays, patents are granted regardless of their merit as original or innovative. This is left to courts and lawyers, even costing millions in legal expenses. This is the actual purpose of patents: to raise the bar against new, small, innovative companies. All the precious patents on prior art are selectively enforced only against competitors. And, as this case between Apple and Samsung demonstrates, not even against the one who infringed on the alleged patent, for Apple is suing an Android characteristic, but it dares not to sue Google, which it needs.

Sorry, were you too busy looking for clicks that you didn't notice I was around or you did but you decided to stick your head in the sand 'cause you can't stand seeing me around that you wanted me banned but you just couldn't make it happen? Anyway, if you believe Apple is only up in court because of a rectangle then you're best ignored good day Samsung fanboy

SEP are true technology. Without them, you've got a pretty paper weight. That's not saying that there wasn't work involved in the design of Apple's products, or even with things like slide to unlock or the rubber banding effect. But to compare those to GSM, CDMA, LTE, etc isn't the same thing. There's a reason they're called ESSENTIAL patents, without them the device doesn't function. And I'd bet a lot more time, effort, and money went into those technologies than the Apple ones I mentioned above.

Those technologies take years to come to fruition, but because they are made an industry standard, companies like Apple have an unfair advantage when negotiating licensing. All they'd have to do is add the price of the SEP license to the amount they want to license their patents for, and they've essentially got the SEP patents for free. If you were a company, what's the upside to having your patent made a standard?

But if these companies avoid having their technology made a standard, you have multiple technologies that usually don't work with each other, all vying for market dominance. That's when you end up with situations like vhs & betamax, hd DVD & bluray, CDMA & GSM, HSPA & WiMax & LTE, etc. You end up with a multitude of different technologies that aren't compatible with each other, which leads to having different gear and accessories for each one. A few years back every company had proprietary charging ports for their phones. So whenever you changed phone manufacturers, you needed a new charger. Some manufacturers changed their ports every year. How much money and materials were wasted before they went to the micro USB being made the standard port?

There are arguments for both sides of the SEP situation. SEP owners could force others to pay exorbitant licensing fees or not have functionality. Non SEP owners could jack up the licensing fees of their patents to offset the cost of the SEPs. The only way for the industry to dig itself out of this litigation hole is to set up a standard fee for patents, or even a tiered system based on either how important the patent is, or the money spent on r&d.

But to say that something like LTE is no more an example of TRUE technology than a design patent is ridiculous.

Agreed. I BS design patent should never garner more in licensing fees than that of a SEP. Assuming I read your post correctly. SEP's should be a gold standard Patent, assuming one doesn't scrap the system altogether, and everything else should garner less in licensing fees based on it's essentialness to function. Like the stupid "rubberband" effect that basically no one even noticed that apple went around suing on. Then a company like apple would never have any kind of bargaining chip because they don't actually make anything essential to a phones function. Everyone else in the industry does.

It's not that Apple's patents have no value, there was time and effort that went into them. But a smart phone could function without them. Mostly they are a convenience.

IMHO, no one should have an unfair advantage as far as licensing goes. The problem is the governing body has put companies with essential technology in the least powerful position, when they should be putting all companies on a level playing field. Until that happens, expect companies to continue to exploit the system.

Maybe a better system would be to break it down by the type of patent. SEPs get one amount, non essentials get another amount, design patents get another amount, and so on. Rather than trust these companies to act like mature, ethical people (which will never happen), set a fixed rate for each type and go from there. It would eliminate the litigation BS, unless someone does use the patent without licensing it, and make it much easier for these companies to focus on bringing a better product to the consumer. I still don't get why that would be such a bad thing in many people's eyes.

Or, better yet, use the same model of music copyright, where any music can be reproduced without asking the author, provided that a fee be paid for each reproduction.

Ravel's family still receives about $2 million per year in copyrights for his "Bolero" 85 years after it's been released. Yet they don't go about suing everyone who dares to dance to a bolero without their permission.

I'm not saying all of apple's patents have no value. But some of them are absolutely worthless. Which is the same as every company, but the point is some of these design patents need to be more descriptive and specific. Not a flat front rectangular device. Other than that, I agree with what you said. I also think that in order for you to apply for and be granted a patent, you must be on track to have a working device with that standard in it within 18-24 months. Not just giving out patents to companies that aren't actively making anything.

I definitely agree about your ideas for patent applications. This business of coming up with patents and not putting them into production is one of the many things wrong with the patent system. I'd also take it a step further and make it a rule that companies who purchase patents from other companies must put them into production, or forfeit the right to use them in litigation. That would put an end to the patent trolls.

Great , now we have a blue glow when we reach the end of the list .
I remembered on stock gingerbread you will get an orange glow , but samsung decided to copy iOS and go eth the rubber band effect and get themselves in trouble

I realise how important SEPs are but at this point we wouldn't be having iconic companies like Ferrari (Roberts' Miami Coupe and Miami Spyder case) if design patents weren't granted. It took over a thousand prototypes to come to the right design choice and a lot of work was done to come up with the iphone's design that Samsung coveted.

Again, I have no problem with Apple getting money for their IP, the problem is they've got Samsung over a barrel. When Apple goes after Samsung the can go for money, an injunction, an outright ban, and there is no limit to what they can ask for their patents if they want to. Samsung, or any company with SEPs for that matter, are subject to FRAND, so they cannot ask for a ban, they have to license it for whatever they have before, and that's about it. Iconic design or not, without the functionality provided by SEPs, its a pretty paper weight. There have been iconic products that were downright ugly (Motorola's brick phone) but were iconic because they also worked. How many greatly designed products that didn't function were considered iconic. All I'm saying is a product should place function before form. And the current rules governing SEP/FRAND is like tying the owner's hands behind their back and putting them in the boxing ring.

P.S. You should lose your internet privileges for mentioning Apple in the same breath as Ferrari when talking about design. ;)

Except that the court that oversaw that case found that Samsung was not abusing SEPs. In fact, they found that Apple was negotiating in bad faith and engaging in a reverse holdup. Apples behavior was so egregious that they took the almost unheard of step of ordering a sales ban on the offending Apple products.

And to this day, no other finding in law has contradicted that finding.

OnePlus 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S8 selfie camera comparison

All content (phone reviews, news, specs, info), design and layouts are Copyright 2001-2017 phoneArena.com. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part or in any form or medium without written permission is prohibited! Privacy . Terms of use . Cookies . Team